Newspaper Page Text

PAGE
D-A
SUNDAY,
OCTOBER
6.
199)
AGRIBUSINESS
PRESS-REPUBLICAN
PLATTSBURGH,
NY.
Genetically
engineered
corn
passes
field
tests
Ttt«
Wall
StfMt
Journal
The
first
field-grown
ears
and
stalks
of
genetically
engineered
corn
indicate
that
inserting
new
genes
into
the
nation'9
biggest
farm
crop
is
practical.
Biotechnology
companies
last
year
achieved
a
long-sought
goal
of
inserting
new
genes
into
labo-
ratory-grown
corn
plants.
This
summer
they
planted
their
first
field
plots
of
genetically
altered
corn
to
make
sure
that
the
new
genes
would
function
and
that
genetic
manhandling
didn't
cause
any
unwanted
changes
in
the
plants.
\Its
a
bit
too
early
(to
assess
the
field
test
in
detail}
since
we
just
harvested
our
plots
three
weeks
ago
and
the
samples
are
still
in
the
lab
being
analyzed,\
says
Charles
H.
Baker,
president
of
BioTechnica
International
Inc.
in
Overland
Park,
Kan.
\But
it
looks^
like
everything
turned
out
as
expected/*
he
says.
Genetic
engineers
ultimately
to
Milk
strike:
Steve
Pereira,
aided
by
his
mother,
Ana,
gets
a
cup
Luis
Pereira's,
farm
in
Deerfield,
NY
The
milk
was
dumped
by
of
milk
from
the
stream
pouring
out
of
a
milk
truck
on
his
father,
area
farmers
there
last
week
to
protest
low
milk
prices.
Cornell
Ag
Contiection
Role
of
cows
in
global
warming
exaggerated
To
counteract
global
warming
due
to
the
release
of
gases
into
the
atmosphere,
the
simple
act
of
replacing
incandescent
light
bulbs
with
fluorescent
bulbs
would
be
cheaper
and
more
ef-
fective
than
trying
to
curb
how
much
methane
cows
emit,
say
two
Cornell
University
resource
economists.
Furthermore,
recently
publish-
ed
estimates
that
cows
give
off
as
much
as
15
percent
of
the
methane
released
into
the
at-
mosphere
are
exaggerated,
they
assert,
because
the
estimates
ig-
nore
the
effect
of
carbon's
bio-
logical
and
chemical
cycles.
When
such
cycles
are
consid-
ered,
the
net
effect
of
gas
emis-
sions
from
ruminant
animals
may
be
less
than
five
percent
of
total
emissions-
Further,
with
proper
handling
of
manure,
ruminants
in
fact
could
become
an
overall
sink
for
carbon
diox-
ide.
We
believe
that
there
is
a
tendency
to
overemphasize
cows
and
agriculture
in
general,
as
well
as
rice
paddies
in
develop-
ing
countries
—
which
are
reported
to
emit
20
percent
of
the
methane
each
year
—
as
causes
of
global
warming.
This
diverts
attention
away
from
the
much
more
urgent
need
to
reduce
fossil-fuel
consumption
in
industrialized
nations/'
said
Duane
Chapman,
a
professor
of
resource
economics
in
the
Col-
lege
of
Agriculture
and
Life
Sciences
at
Cornell.
\In
our
view,
cows
and
agriculture
are
not
the
hazard
to
the
atmosphere
that
some
scien-
tists
have
made
them
out
to
be.\
Parathion
banned
for
most
uses
WASHINGTON
4AP)
-
Makers
of
the
pesticide
parathion
agreed
to
tough
new
restrictions
recently,
but
the
Environmental
Protection
Agen-
cy
said
it
will
seek
to
go
further
and
ban
the
chemical
blamed
for
killing
dozens
of
farm
workers.
EPA
and
the
producers
agreed
to
limit
the
highly
toxic
insec-
ticide
to
use
cm
nine
crops,
out
of
about
90
on
which
it
is
cur-
rently
applied.
The
action
is
ex-
pected
to
cut
parathion
use
by
at
least
half
from
the
recent
levels
of
about
3
million
to
6
mil-
lion
pounds
annually.
Environmentalists
said
the
dangers
of
parathion
have
been
known
for
decades
and
should
have
prompted
faster
and
more
decisive
government
action
EPA
Administrator
William
K
KeiDy
said
the
deal
~wiH
result
in
a
dramatic
reductioo
in
the
number
of
workers
who
an-
nually
are
poisoned
by
exposure
to
this
pesticide.'.'
He
said.
\Those
uses
which
pose
the
greatest
clangers
to
workers
will
be
prohibited
almost
immediate-
ly
and
the
agency
plans
to
cancel
the
other
uses
soon.\
Officials
said
they
expect
the
proceedings
on
a
total
ban
to
be
coiuo«ted
and
to
\me\
•boyt
IS
months
Meanwhile,
after
Dec
31
parathion
will
be
allowed
on
only
nine
crops
alfalfa,
barley,
canoia.
corn
cotton,
sorghum,
soybeans
sunflower
and
wheat
Those
rune,
wtuch
are
»D
harvested
mechanjcaQy
rather
than
with
hand
labor,
account
U*
about
40
perrem
to
50
per-
cent
of
the
total
use
of
paraih.or.
said
Linda
Fisher,
the
government
agency's
assistant
administrator
for
pesticides
and
toxic
substances.
Crops
on
which
parathion
will
no
longer
be
allowed
to
be
used
include
apples,
almonds,
oats,
peaches
and
peanuts.
Fisher
said
there
was
no
evi-
dence
that
parathion
residues
cm
food
pose
any
hazard
to
con-
sumers
The
only
manufacturer
of
parathion
is
the
Danish
firm
Cheminova.
with
American
headquarters
in
Bloomfiekl.
N
J
Eight
American
firms
have
licenses
to
use
the
chemical
in
producing
pesticides,
so
they
also
were
involved
in
the
agree-
ment
with
EPA
Kurt
Hailing,
president
of
Cheminova*
s
U.S.
subsidiary.
«aad
the
company
had
no
com-
ment
Al
Meyerboff.
a
senior
staff
attorney
in
San
Francisco
for
the
Natural
Resources
Defense
Council
said
more
than
a
dozen
countries,
including
Britain.
Ireland
and
the
Soviet
Union,
have
banned
parathion.
said
Chapman.
\We've
got
to
face
the
fact
that
fossil-fuel
con-
sumption
by
industrialized
na-
tions
is
the
culprit
and
therefore
must
be
the
focus
of
any
inter-
national
agreements
slated
to
reduce
greenhouse-gas
emis-
sions.\
His
work,
done
in
collabora-
tion
with
doctoral
student
Thomas
Drennen,
.
will
be
published
in
the
proceedings
of
the
November
1990
conference.
\Global
Change:
Economic
Issues
in
Agriculture.
Forestry,
and
Natural
Resources/*
by
Westview
Press.
'The
present
estimates
have
ignored
how
livestock
\recycle
carbon.
They
don't
just
emit
methane:
they
also
utilize
hay
and
grain,
which
remove
the
greenhouse-gas
carbon
dioxide
from
the
atmosphere
through
the
photosynthesis
process.
Fur-
ther,
if
properly
managed,
ma-
nure
from
cows
can
return
car-
bon
to
the
soil,
1
*
Chapman
ex-
plains.
Some
government
officials,
scientists,
and
others
have
pro-
posed
that
methane,
which
traps
infrared
radiation
from
escaping
from
the
Earth's
atmosphere,
should
be
included
with
carbon
dioxide
when
international
agreements
to
limit
emissions
of
climate-changing
greenhouse
gases
are
considered.
However,
Chapman
and
Drennen
contend
that
such
concern
is
unjustified
and
that
an
agreement
aimed
at
reducing
carbon
dioxide
would
be
an
important
first
step.
As
further
support
for
their
emphasis
on
carbon
dioxide,
they
note
that
carbon
dioxide
will
account
for
as
much
as
90
percent
of
the
problem
once
the
chlorofluorocarbons,
now
used
as
aerosols,
refrigerants,
and
foam
plastics,
are
phased
out
by
the
year
2000.
As
for
the
cows,
each
adult
cow
releases
up
to
106
gallons
of
methane
per
day
through
belching.
Scientists
calculate
that
the
1.2
billion
cattle
worldwide
release
some
60
mil-
lion
tons
of
methane
annually.
To
consider
limiting
cattle
production
as
a
way
to
reduce
global
warming
is
\absurd
Chapman
and
Drennen
point
out.
One
cow,
they
say,
has
the
same
global-warming
effect
as
a
75-watt
light
bulb
operating
for
an
entire
year.
\Replacing
in-
candescent
light
bulbs
in
indus-
trialized
countries
with
new
18-
watt
fluorescent
bulbs
that
pro-
vide
the
same
amount
of
light
would
go
much
further
in
reduc-
ing
future
climate-change
impact
than
trying
to
regulate
bovine
emissions
in
developing
coun-
tries,
which
have
53
percent
of
the
worlds
cows/*
Chapman
said.
Furthermore,
Chapman
and
Drennen
point
out
that
rumi-
nant
animals
and
rice
paddies
both
recycle
carbon,
unlike
fossil-fuel
consumption
which
releases
new
carbon
into
the
at-
mosphere.
Methane's
impact
on
the
global
climate
from
cows
and
agriculture
is
simply
not
the
same
as
methane
from
fossil-fuel
use.
they
assert.
Chapman
and
Drennen's
work,
supported
by
Cornell,
is
part
of
a
larger
ongoing
project
to
evaluate
the
magnitude
of
emis-
sions
from
the
biological
versus
energy
sectors.
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aim
to
increase
the
corn
crop's
resistance
to
insects,
drought
and
chemicals
and
to
improve
its
nutritional
value
as
livestock
feed.
If
successful,
the
corn
ex-
periments
could
have
an
eco-
nomic
impact
that
would
dwarf
most
other
genetic
engineering
feats.
Since
the
seven
billion
to
7.5
billion
bushels
of
corn
that
U.S.
farmers
harvest
each
year
are
worth
$18
billion
to
$20
billion,
new
genes
that
can
increase
per-acre
yields
by
only
a
few
percent
or
add
a
few
cents
per
bushel
to
prices
of
com
for
cat-
tle,
swine
and
poultry
feed
are
worth
hundreds
of
millions
of
dollars
to
farmers.
The
stakes
also
are
high
for
.the..half-dozen
companies
now
racing
to
market
genetically
modified
corn.
Besides
BioTechnica
these
companies
in-
clude
Monsanto
Co.,
Pioneer
Hi-Bred
International
Inc.,
DeKalb
Genetics
Corp.
and
Ciba
Geigy
Corp.
All
are
fierce
com-
petitors
for
the
$1.5
billion
that
U.S.
farmers
spend
each
year
on
hybrid
corn
seed.
Cross-breeding
Plant
geneticists
have
been
improving
corn
plants
since
the
1920s,
but
only
through
tedious
years
of
cross-breeding
corn
strains
that
have
desirable
genes.
The
breakthrough
last
year,
announced
by
one
company
after
another,
was
the
ability
to
insert
new
genes
directly
into
em-
bryonic
corn
plants
without
cross-breeding.
The
new
technology
allows
plant
scien-
tists
to
add
almost
any
new
gene
to
a
corn
plant,
including
genes
from
bacteria
and
from
other
plants.
The
new
gene-inserting
technology
being
used
by
most
of
the
companies
was
pioneered
by
Cornell
University
and
was
perfected
by
Du
Pont
Co.
Known
as
\microprojectile
bom-
bardment/'
it
is
literally
a
gun
that
shoots
new
genes
into
the
germ
cells
of
corn
plants.
While
some
of
the
companies
experimented
only
with
so-called
market
genes
that
confer
resistance
on
an
antibiotic
or
in-
secticide,
Monsanto
tested
a
gene
that
it
hopes
will
end
up
in
a
new
commercial
strain
of
corn.
Its
experimental
corn
plants
this
summer
carried
a
bacterial
gene
that
produces
a
natural
insec-
ticide,
which
interferes
with
the
digestion
of
corn
leaves
eaten
by
the
European
corn
borer,
said
Michael
Fromm,
the
chemical
company's
project
leader
for
corn
genetics.
Corn
borers
chomping
into
leaves
of
corn
plants
with
the
new
gene
should
get
a
lethal
dose
of
the
insec-
ticide,
he
said.
Laboratory
Monsanto
tested
gene-altered
corn
plants
in
an
area
already
in-
fested
with
the
corn
borer.
The
inserted
gene
functioned
in
the
field-tested
plants,
Fromm
said,
but
he
conceded
\it
didn't
work
as
well
as
in
the
laboratory/*
-That
is
because
\the
way
the
in-
sects
grow
in
the
field
is
dif-
ferent\
from
in
the
laboratory.
he
said.
BioTechnica
also
tested'a)gene
that
it
hopes
to
insert
into
com-
mercial
strains
of
hybrid
corn.
Baker
said.
The
gene
boosts
the
corn's
content
of
methionine,
one
of
the
essential
amino
acids
that
are
vital
components
of
proteins.
Today*
s
corn,
Baker
says,
falls
short
of
supplying
a
chicken's
daily
requirements
of
methionine.
BioTechnica
hopes
to
produce
a
high-methionine
corn
that
will
enable
poultry
breeders
and
growers
to
reduce
or
eliminate
the
need
to
add
syn-
thetic
methionine
to
their
birds'
diets,
he
explains.
Pioneer
hopes
to
begin
field
tests
next
season
of
corn
carry-
ing
commercially
important
genes
for
resistance
to
insects
and
diseases,
says
John
Howard,
the
company's
director
of
biotechnology.
How
long
it
will
be
before
farmers
can
plant
genetically
engineered
corn
is
unknown.
Pi-
oneer's
Howard
guesses
it
may
take
three
more
years
to
get
new
genes
into
commercial
strains
of
corn.
It
then
will
take
four
to
five
years
to
parlay
the
new
plants
into
a
seed
crop
large
enough
for
the
company
to
begin
selling
seed
to
farmers.
\My
guess
is
that
the
farmer
won't
see
(genetically
engineered
corn)
before
1998,\
he
says.
P-R
Business
Guidelines
The
Press-Republican
is
committed
to
business
coverage.
Here's
a
brief
explanation
of
how
we
categorize
business
news:
•
New-business
photos
run,
on
a
space-available
basis
on
the
business
pages,
Monday
through
Saturday.
New
businesses
should
telephone
or
write
to
make
an
appointment
for
a
photo.
•
Established
businesses
that
have
a
significant
news
develop-
ment
—
new
owner,
new
location,
expansion
or
anniversary
—
may
be
eligible
for
a
business
profile.
Published
under
the
heading
\People
in
Business/'
these
medium-length
features
run
in
the
Sunday
paper.
Businesses
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be
locally
owned,
cannot
be
franchises
and
cannot
be
professionals.
•
Other
business
news
items
are
usually
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business
briefs.
Called
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on
business\
and
published
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day
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this
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$5,000,
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or
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management
level
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fewer
than
25
years.
Please
address
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releases
or
inquiries
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Sunday
Editor
Jack
Downs,
Press-Republican,
170
Margaret
St.,
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PAGE D-A SUNDAY, OCTOBER 6. 199) AGRIBUSINESS PRESS-REPUBLICAN PLATTSBURGH, NY. Genetically engineered corn passes field tests Ttt« Wall StfMt Journal The first field-grown ears and stalks of genetically engineered corn indicate that inserting new genes into the nation'9 biggest farm crop is practical. Biotechnology companies last year achieved a long-sought goal of inserting new genes into labo- ratory-grown corn plants. This summer they planted their first field plots of genetically altered corn to make sure that the new genes would function and that genetic manhandling didn't cause any unwanted changes in the plants. \Its a bit too early (to assess the field test in detail} since we just harvested our plots three weeks ago and the samples are still in the lab being analyzed,\ says Charles H. Baker, president of BioTechnica International Inc. in Overland Park, Kan. \But it looks^ like everything turned out as expected/* he says. Genetic engineers ultimately to Milk strike: Steve Pereira, aided by his mother, Ana, gets a cup Luis Pereira's, farm in Deerfield, NY The milk was dumped by of milk from the stream pouring out of a milk truck on his father, area farmers there last week to protest low milk prices. Cornell Ag Contiection Role of cows in global warming exaggerated To counteract global warming due to the release of gases into the atmosphere, the simple act of replacing incandescent light bulbs with fluorescent bulbs would be cheaper and more ef- fective than trying to curb how much methane cows emit, say two Cornell University resource economists. Furthermore, recently publish- ed estimates that cows give off as much as 15 percent of the methane released into the at- mosphere are exaggerated, they assert, because the estimates ig- nore the effect of carbon's bio- logical and chemical cycles. When such cycles are consid- ered, the net effect of gas emis- sions from ruminant animals may be less than five percent of total emissions- Further, with proper handling of manure, ruminants in fact could become an overall sink for carbon diox- ide. We believe that there is a tendency to overemphasize cows and agriculture in general, as well as rice paddies in develop- ing countries — which are reported to emit 20 percent of the methane each year — as causes of global warming. This diverts attention away from the much more urgent need to reduce fossil-fuel consumption in industrialized nations/' said Duane Chapman, a professor of resource economics in the Col- lege of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell. \In our view, cows and agriculture are not the hazard to the atmosphere that some scien- tists have made them out to be.\ Parathion banned for most uses WASHINGTON 4AP) - Makers of the pesticide parathion agreed to tough new restrictions recently, but the Environmental Protection Agen- cy said it will seek to go further and ban the chemical blamed for killing dozens of farm workers. EPA and the producers agreed to limit the highly toxic insec- ticide to use cm nine crops, out of about 90 on which it is cur- rently applied. The action is ex- pected to cut parathion use by at least half from the recent levels of about 3 million to 6 mil- lion pounds annually. Environmentalists said the dangers of parathion have been known for decades and should have prompted faster and more decisive government action EPA Administrator William K KeiDy said the deal ~wiH result in a dramatic reductioo in the number of workers who an- nually are poisoned by exposure to this pesticide.'.' He said. \Those uses which pose the greatest clangers to workers will be prohibited almost immediate- ly and the agency plans to cancel the other uses soon.\ Officials said they expect the proceedings on a total ban to be coiuo«ted and to \me\ •boyt IS months Meanwhile, after Dec 31 parathion will be allowed on only nine crops alfalfa, barley, canoia. corn cotton, sorghum, soybeans sunflower and wheat Those rune, wtuch are »D harvested mechanjcaQy rather than with hand labor, account U* about 40 perrem to 50 per- cent of the total use of paraih.or. said Linda Fisher, the government agency's assistant administrator for pesticides and toxic substances. Crops on which parathion will no longer be allowed to be used include apples, almonds, oats, peaches and peanuts. Fisher said there was no evi- dence that parathion residues cm food pose any hazard to con- sumers The only manufacturer of parathion is the Danish firm Cheminova. with American headquarters in Bloomfiekl. N J Eight American firms have licenses to use the chemical in producing pesticides, so they also were involved in the agree- ment with EPA Kurt Hailing, president of Cheminova* s U.S. subsidiary. «aad the company had no com- ment Al Meyerboff. a senior staff attorney in San Francisco for the Natural Resources Defense Council said more than a dozen countries, including Britain. Ireland and the Soviet Union, have banned parathion. said Chapman. \We've got to face the fact that fossil-fuel con- sumption by industrialized na- tions is the culprit and therefore must be the focus of any inter- national agreements slated to reduce greenhouse-gas emis- sions.\ His work, done in collabora- tion with doctoral student Thomas Drennen, . will be published in the proceedings of the November 1990 conference. \Global Change: Economic Issues in Agriculture. Forestry, and Natural Resources/* by Westview Press. 'The present estimates have ignored how livestock \recycle carbon. They don't just emit methane: they also utilize hay and grain, which remove the greenhouse-gas carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through the photosynthesis process. Fur- ther, if properly managed, ma- nure from cows can return car- bon to the soil, 1 * Chapman ex- plains. Some government officials, scientists, and others have pro- posed that methane, which traps infrared radiation from escaping from the Earth's atmosphere, should be included with carbon dioxide when international agreements to limit emissions of climate-changing greenhouse gases are considered. However, Chapman and Drennen contend that such concern is unjustified and that an agreement aimed at reducing carbon dioxide would be an important first step. As further support for their emphasis on carbon dioxide, they note that carbon dioxide will account for as much as 90 percent of the problem once the chlorofluorocarbons, now used as aerosols, refrigerants, and foam plastics, are phased out by the year 2000. As for the cows, each adult cow releases up to 106 gallons of methane per day through belching. Scientists calculate that the 1.2 billion cattle worldwide release some 60 mil- lion tons of methane annually. To consider limiting cattle production as a way to reduce global warming is \absurd Chapman and Drennen point out. One cow, they say, has the same global-warming effect as a 75-watt light bulb operating for an entire year. \Replacing in- candescent light bulbs in indus- trialized countries with new 18- watt fluorescent bulbs that pro- vide the same amount of light would go much further in reduc- ing future climate-change impact than trying to regulate bovine emissions in developing coun- tries, which have 53 percent of the worlds cows/* Chapman said. Furthermore, Chapman and Drennen point out that rumi- nant animals and rice paddies both recycle carbon, unlike fossil-fuel consumption which releases new carbon into the at- mosphere. Methane's impact on the global climate from cows and agriculture is simply not the same as methane from fossil-fuel use. they assert. Chapman and Drennen's work, supported by Cornell, is part of a larger ongoing project to evaluate the magnitude of emis- sions from the biological versus energy sectors. SOLUTION TO PUZZLES UULHJU UIIUU UUUU nOHHO nnnnn nnon nnon nnnnra nnn UQIBGU mjiaoBOijno] DBOO BBO DEC GRQ QQflB onooo n ocn OBBGH ram DISCUS BOLEO FUTURE APTTJL G€V»US TO TURN OFF THE LIGHTS ITIOTBU HGHU nnnnn nrwn UIIHDU nnnnn aim to increase the corn crop's resistance to insects, drought and chemicals and to improve its nutritional value as livestock feed. If successful, the corn ex- periments could have an eco- nomic impact that would dwarf most other genetic engineering feats. Since the seven billion to 7.5 billion bushels of corn that U.S. farmers harvest each year are worth $18 billion to $20 billion, new genes that can increase per-acre yields by only a few percent or add a few cents per bushel to prices of com for cat- tle, swine and poultry feed are worth hundreds of millions of dollars to farmers. The stakes also are high for .the..half-dozen companies now racing to market genetically modified corn. Besides BioTechnica these companies in- clude Monsanto Co., Pioneer Hi-Bred International Inc., DeKalb Genetics Corp. and Ciba Geigy Corp. All are fierce com- petitors for the $1.5 billion that U.S. farmers spend each year on hybrid corn seed. Cross-breeding Plant geneticists have been improving corn plants since the 1920s, but only through tedious years of cross-breeding corn strains that have desirable genes. The breakthrough last year, announced by one company after another, was the ability to insert new genes directly into em- bryonic corn plants without cross-breeding. The new technology allows plant scien- tists to add almost any new gene to a corn plant, including genes from bacteria and from other plants. The new gene-inserting technology being used by most of the companies was pioneered by Cornell University and was perfected by Du Pont Co. Known as \microprojectile bom- bardment/' it is literally a gun that shoots new genes into the germ cells of corn plants. While some of the companies experimented only with so-called market genes that confer resistance on an antibiotic or in- secticide, Monsanto tested a gene that it hopes will end up in a new commercial strain of corn. Its experimental corn plants this summer carried a bacterial gene that produces a natural insec- ticide, which interferes with the digestion of corn leaves eaten by the European corn borer, said Michael Fromm, the chemical company's project leader for corn genetics. Corn borers chomping into leaves of corn plants with the new gene should get a lethal dose of the insec- ticide, he said. Laboratory Monsanto tested gene-altered corn plants in an area already in- fested with the corn borer. The inserted gene functioned in the field-tested plants, Fromm said, but he conceded \it didn't work as well as in the laboratory/* -That is because \the way the in- sects grow in the field is dif- ferent\ from in the laboratory. he said. BioTechnica also tested'a)gene that it hopes to insert into com- mercial strains of hybrid corn. Baker said. The gene boosts the corn's content of methionine, one of the essential amino acids that are vital components of proteins. Today* s corn, Baker says, falls short of supplying a chicken's daily requirements of methionine. BioTechnica hopes to produce a high-methionine corn that will enable poultry breeders and growers to reduce or eliminate the need to add syn- thetic methionine to their birds' diets, he explains. Pioneer hopes to begin field tests next season of corn carry- ing commercially important genes for resistance to insects and diseases, says John Howard, the company's director of biotechnology. How long it will be before farmers can plant genetically engineered corn is unknown. Pi- oneer's Howard guesses it may take three more years to get new genes into commercial strains of corn. It then will take four to five years to parlay the new plants into a seed crop large enough for the company to begin selling seed to farmers. \My guess is that the farmer won't see (genetically engineered corn) before 1998,\ he says. P-R Business Guidelines The Press-Republican is committed to business coverage. Here's a brief explanation of how we categorize business news: • New-business photos run, on a space-available basis on the business pages, Monday through Saturday. New businesses should telephone or write to make an appointment for a photo. • Established businesses that have a significant news develop- ment — new owner, new location, expansion or anniversary — may be eligible for a business profile. Published under the heading \People in Business/' these medium-length features run in the Sunday paper. Businesses must be locally owned, cannot be franchises and cannot be professionals. • Other business news items are usually classified as business briefs. Called \Spotlight on business\ and published in the Sun- day paper this feature includes abbreviated news items on con- test and award winners of less than $5,000, new employees, employee promotions, charitable contributions of less than $5,000, seminars, conventions, and training. We do not an- nounce the hiring or promotion of employees below management level or longevity awards for fewer than 25 years. Please address all press releases or inquiries to Sunday Editor Jack Downs, Press-Republican, 170 Margaret St., Pittsburgh, N.Y. 12901. 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